ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests a degree of inter-meshing of Christianitas and civilization, rather than a clear relationship between two distinct entities. The potential enrichment afforded by Christianitas to the extensive framework of civilization presents a picture of the lingering religious component in the expanding civilizational base. The chapter is formulated more as a series of stages in the development of a problem than as a definitive answer—an inquiry into the uncertainties in an ultimately indefinable relationship. One can distinguish three periods in the development of the West since the fall of Rome. The first, generally referred to as Christianitas, which includes the political implications of Christendom spanned some twelve centuries, from the end of the Roman Empire to the later part of the seventeenth century. The second came eventually to be known as civilization period extending from the end of the seventeenth century to the outbreak of the First World War. The third began at the turn of the twentieth century.
